Data Driverby David Ramel

Data Survey: Microsoft Fending Off Challengers, for Now

A new survey of database developers and other professionals shows Microsoft is maintaining its lead in the Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) and data warehousing arenas, but faces challenges from newcomers in Big Data and other markets.

Conducted by Progress Software Corp., the "Progress DataDirect 2014 Data Connectivity Outlook" survey purported to reveal "the rising stars in the database constellation." Developers constituted the largest group of respondents (36 percent of 300 existing customers surveyed), followed by CXOs and other management types.

For the RDBMS and enterprise data warehouse markets, respondents were asked about their data technologies currently in use and those expected to be implemented within the next two years. Although Microsoft (SQL Server) and Oracle unsurprisingly took the top two positions in current and projected usage in the RDBMS market, the survey "projects significant growth for emerging alternatives such as the community-developed MariaDB as well as the SAP HANA in-memory platform, over the next two years," Progress said this week.

In the enterprise data warehouse world, the top three technologies currently in use were again no surprise: SQL Server, Oracle and IBM DB2. However, all three were projected to show lower numbers in two years, while the current No. 4, Teradata, was expected to see higher usage. Amazon Redshift will reportedly show the biggest percentage increase in adoption, but is still expected to be in use by only slightly more than 10 percent of respondents in two years. SQL Server usage is expected to drop from being used by about 58 percent of respondents today to about 48 percent of respondents in two years.

Perhaps more of a surprise, Microsoft HD Insights was listed as the No. 2 Hadoop provider, following overwhelming market leader Apache's open source distribution, listed by more than 45 percent of respondents. Cloudera placed a close third, followed by Oracle DBA, Amazon EMR, IBM BigInsights, Hortonworks, MapR and Pivotal HD. This question asked respondents only what distribution they currently used or planned to use in the next two years, so there was no indication of growth over that period.

"With open-source Apache's low-cost of entry propelling its lead in the market, one can expect other big players in Big Data to further iterate their own unique value and perspectives when it comes to data storage within Hadoop databases like Hive, HBase and Cassandra," the survey report said. "Future competition from many of the large vendors may begin to change market distribution, but no significant changes are foreseen."

Another question concerned usage of NoSQL, NewSQL and non-relational databases, asking only which technologies were currently used or supported. Here, MongoDB held a large lead, used by nearly 40 percent of respondents, with SQLFire, Cassandra, HBase and CouchDB/Couchbase rounding out the top five of the 14 total products listed.

Salesforce.com reported a huge lead in respondents answering the question: "Which [Software as a Service ] SaaS applications do you or your customers currently use or support in your applications?" It was the choice of more than 40 percent of respondents, while Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online came in second, listed by more than 20 percent, followed by SAP Business ByDesign, Force.com and Intuit QuickBooks.

Progress said its first survey of this type "shows that while established vendors still hold significant share, a new set of rising stars--many of them lower-cost alternatives--are emerging in the data source world."

What do you think of the future of the database development landscape? Comment here or drop me a line.